For years, we debated if Toad were the next dali lama, or if he had already spent a life as a lama and his reward was to spend an incarnation as one of our pets.
Toad was totally at one with his world and he loved all beings. He was the only one of the cats who didn't mind the dog. He demanded from and gave affection to everyone who entered our home. In his younger days, before he lost his hearing, we could call him by making kissing noises. He loved to have his head kissed. Sometimes, after parties in our home, he would have multiple shades of lipstick on his forehead.
When he was a kitten, he was so rambunctious that we briefly considered giving him back to his mother's owner. (Our cat Mr. Cat was his father.) He didn't so much mew as bellow like a love sick moose. When we first moved into our current home, we decided to stop feeding all the neighborhood cats. . . within hours of arriving in this home, Toad climbed into a window, bellowed, and cats just started showing up.
Even after being fixed, twice, he was a randy thing. He liked to hump stuffed animals. He especially liked an audience. When we would have company, he'd drag a stuffed animal into the sitting room and we would rush to take it away from him before the floor show started. Other times, he'd hump away outside our bedroom door, bellowing away, trumpeting that he was getting some.
Most of all, he was a loving but annoying perfect cat. He died today, shy of his 20th birthday. He had a great life with us. I miss him terribly already.
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